ann arbor is overrated.

The city manages to blame the recent club brawling epidemic in downtown Ann Arbor on drunk college students - even though, as far as we know, there’s been no report that U of M students were involved, and all three incidents happened during the summer. “In a college town like this, we kind of anticipate we’re going to have ups and downs,” city administrator Roger Fraser told the Free Press. “Officials said some trouble can be expected when young people drink,” the Freep reported. One of the fights broke out at “a special non-alcohol teen night” for high schoolers.

National Review’s Jay Nordlinger, poor thing, got his first impressions of liberals right here in Tree Town. “I believe I know these people who talk constantly about compassion,” he says of the Kerry campaign. “I grew up with them in Ann Arbor. Frankly, they tend to be bastards.” No, this isn’t the first time Nordlinger’s salvos against his hometown have come up here - “I grew up in Ann Arbor” is pretty much the conservative equivalent of “son of a mill worker.” Or maybe he was just always picked last for the Commie High Multicultural Festival.

The e-TrueBlue alumni newsletter for recent grads looks at the couch ban with a not-quite-recent grad perspective. An item entitled “Porch couches a thing of the past” explains somberly that “the foam cushions in many couches are a serious fire hazard that can be ignited by a dropped cigarette.” The newsletter also warns about the cost of living in cities like New York and Chicago, offering pest control tips for alums who move into less than ideal apartments. After all, four years of living in the low-cost, vermin-free, not at all falling completely apart palaces of Ann Arbor is enough to spoil you.

Very interesting Planning Commission meeting on CTN tonight. In the time we were watching, about six local residents stood up to protest the rezoning of a house near Hill and Olivia Streets - whose next-door neighbors are a sorority and a church - that a father wanted to buy for his college student daughter and two roommates to live in. Such an action, one resident said, would constitute “condemn[ing] a historic house.” It was an affront to New Urbanism and would contribute to sprawl, another argued. Some comments unwittingly illustrated not only how A2 residents want all the benefits of living in a college town but none of the drawbacks, but that sometimes those benefits and drawbacks are one and the same. One woman who doesn’t live in the area but bicycles past the house from time to time expressed disbelief that “our neighborhoods can be chiseled away for these college-bound kids,” which she said would disrupt the area’s “collegial” atmosphere. Another said that she moved to the neighborhood because “I like the atmosphere of students.”

We also like how the term “rooming house” is often used to describe a home where students live. It’s so appealingly seedy. All we’re missing is a front desk with Ma Bailey handing out the keys.

On “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” vampires and demons usually take the night off on Halloween. It’s too obvious, almost de rigueur. It’s the day when everyone’s dressed as something scary.

Well, think of Art Fair as Halloween for Ann Arbor haters. Art Fair is the time of year when everyone becomes an honorary Tree Town critic. But the true A2-hater, one who’s been honing the craft for years, wants to hear screams of horror, not, “And what’s this, a ‘Talk About Town’-mocking dragon? Oooh, scary! Do you want Twizzlers or a Milky Way?” We actually don’t mind Art Fair that much, as long as we don’t leave our crypt.

The News police log merits a front-page mention on Metafilter. At least one poster is befuddled. “I realize there is a college there that is big, and it is a town… but there seems to be a lot more Ann Arbor references/blogs compared to any other college town. I demand an explanation!” Well, maybe because A2 is the best least stressful college town for dating and retirement with a scene that rocks? We thought everyone knew that.

A university housing shortage threatens to turn student family housing into a microcosm of A2 conflicts, as grad students and undergrads spar over which group is more unpleasant to live around. When we were undergrads, our administration did something like this with single grad student housing, and the only objection we can recall was from grad students unhappy that they would have to compete for fewer spaces, not that they would have to live in the same building as undergrads. So even though it sounds flaky, we have to wonder if the culture of A2 has created an atmosphere where people are terrified to share living spaces with others who aren’t just like them. Parallels between the two situations may be a bit tenuous, because single grad students are in some ways closer to single undergrads than their married colleagues. But continually hearing how noisy and messy students (usually meaning undergrads) are has to make some kind of impression, both on the grad students who want to avoid them and the undergrads themselves, who probably want to steer clear of the tongue-waggers.

If you haven’t seen it on Arbor Update already, the city council has decided to postpone the first reading of the couch ban ordinance until August. It seems that a few council members are taking the fire safety thing seriously and would like to see some actual evidence. But perhaps most significant is Bob Johnson’s comment: “It seemed like an open and shut case at first. But my e-mails are 3-to-1 against it.”

We think it’s interesting that main ban supporter Leigh Greden, a 1995 Albion College alum active in student government as an undergrad, is significantly younger than the average Ann Arbor city council member. (Unless that’s a different Leigh Greden.) Someone who graduated that year who had less ambition and drive than the estimable Mr. Greden, or took a less conventional career path, might be a grad student now himself. On a recent visit home, our parents were complaining that not one but two new village board members for our town were in their early or mid-twenties, and we wondered why this was possible in a sleepy suburb that’s essentially twentysomething Kryptonite, but not in one of the top ten college towns in the U.S. But perhaps it makes less of a difference than we thought.

In case you haven’t been following other local blogs, today is the day that City Council will read, but not debate, the porch couch resolution. So you might want to sit this one out. The public debate on it, provided it passes the first reading, will take place sometime in August - more information forthcoming.

Arbor Update has the exact language for the ban and an e-mail from MSA president Jason Mironov opposing it.

Also, is anyone aware of any organized opposition, or interested in organizing one?

The Times gets through a whole feature on “oppies” - roughly, organic yuppies - without mentioning A2 once. Instead, the story focuses on Columbia and Dutchess counties in upstate New York, where ex-Manhattanite professionals settle to live out their granola dreams. It’s almost like the A2 student/townie tension in reverse - here, it’s the Bobos clashing with an established population, for example, opposing a supermarket that the locals have wanted for years because it would be unsightly. Of course, unlike A2 locals, it’s unclear whether these long-time residents experience much benefit from the transients - unless angora goat wool socks sewn by a urologist are exactly the kind of product they’ve always wanted without realizing it.

Note to A2 townies - the piece doesn’t mention anything about couches on porches anywhere in the piece. Hint. Hint. Haven’t you always thought the Hudson Valley would be a neat place to live?